Letters from War
by Lisilgirl
Summary: In the attic, Ezio finds an heirloom that explains the loss in his life. Canon.


_A/N: I have in my possession a letter from my great-grandfather during WWII. In it, he hoped that the future generations would remember his sacrifices and the hardship that he had to endure. I channelled that spirit into this fiction. It__ has gone through some drastic rewriting, due to the fact that I simply abhor the non-canon-ness of it. _

_Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Assassin's Creed II is not my property. This fiction is for entertainment use only._

**Warnings:** **Some language.**

**

* * *

**

XXX

LETTERS FROM WAR

XXX

The house was so empty.

On the quiet rooftops, I had been a ghost. The upper courtyard window of my childhood house hadn't been locked; I had reached it with a running leap and my fingers deftly prying open the shutters. It had taken me a scarce ten minutes to find the stairway into the attic, where the goods that had to be left that fateful night were left to collect dust. My feet thumped along the wooden floor, adding to my sour thoughts. Not only had I managed to tip off the guards along the waterfront and knocked down a cart of fruit, I had also stained a fine silken shirt from the days before I became an Assassin. And the reason all this had happened?

My mother wanted her lace.

Never mind the house was under guard! Never mind Ezio needed to be searching for wealthy merchants and politicians who knew how to find Rodrigo Borgia! Never mind that my uncle's estate in Monteriggioni was a producer of fine silk, woven, and cloth goods, my mother wanted her wedding _lace_! She brusquely claimed that Claudia would need it soon.

A disturbing vision had kept me tossing last night in a cold sweat; I was exhausted. I caught a glimpse of a chest settled by the back wall, shadowed from the outside world. I had never seen this gleaming trunk before. It looked ancient; unlike the burnished candlelabras in the banquet hall, the copper was slightly green around the edges. It looked like a place where mother would keep her linens.

Uninterested for the moment, I glanced back and forth between crates of toys and parchments, silently musing over the rusted weapons and the brittle paper. I frowned. My left hand trailed along the wall.

I was a mere child when I had needed climbing into the attic to escape my father's punishments. Being alone had help cool my raging tongue and let the tears flow when needed. These walls kept my secrets, my hurried notes of anger. This room, this place...it had saved me once, as a child. Yet when I was swept up in my new life, I hadn't even thought to come here and stay my fury. There hadn't been time.

I sighed at the mess. At my father's passing, I was head of the house. I had killed a man, saved my mother and sister, and become a member of the Assassin's Order before my eighteenth birthday. Two weeks later, and I was searching through the papers that Mario had spirited away from Florence. My sister had asked quietly for a series of bank statements dating from the day our father had been killed to six weeks after. My mother had overheard and snapped from the shadowy doorway that Claudia needed her wedding lace. Secretly, I hoped I would find clues to my legacy.

If only I had listened to my father's advice! Once, he told me that our family was destined for greater, and when I came of age, he would tell me what my place was. He had urged me to continue my studies and keep discretion, not flaunt my money. He had told me to speak to a man named Leonardo da Vinci if I were to leave school. It had been easy to dismiss family, as long as the gold kept pouring into my account.

Ruminations. Regrets.

What good did they do, now that my _padre_ was gone? He could have shown me how to pickpocket and fight with a sword, not my uncle.

Time for work. Grumbling, I crept over crates and neatly labeled report boxes, cursing when my shirt hem caught on a fencing sword. Irritated, I looked toward my goal. I rattled the lock, slipping the ring out of the trap. My knuckles delicately rapped the wood; in response, I heard a hollow thud. The top lid came up easily.

Instead of a handful of moldy lace, there were thick stacks of yellowing parchments, the thin handwriting sharp and precise. My hands gently dusted off the top one, peering in to read.

The writing was in Arabic. I cracked a rueful smile; I had hated those language lessons as a child! Immediately, I thought of my tutor, standing over the polished wooden desk, her eyes wide and dark, her wizened lips puckered. Old as the mountains, she had stiood ram-rod straight next to my father as he gently told my siblings and I that this was a necessary skill, especially for trading overseas. As if he expected us to be merchants.

My eyes squinted.

_-makes me laugh at these Christians, at Te... I rode past three guards in a pa... leading to ... The 'guards' did not spare a second glance... by on the stolen white horse, pretending to pray as a monk_-

The words became too unintelligible. I frowned, eyes trying to pick out a few sentences of whoever was writing.

_-he deserve it?...was a child - eyes were not open to the way of the As-_

Was this...? Was this an ancient history? I hastily looked at the top of the brittle page: 1188 AD. There was no location. I scanned the rest of the page, fingers trying to hold this fascinating find toward the light streaming in through the windows. A few lines down, I saw it: _Israel_.

My heart began to pound. Israel? Long ago, my_ padre_ had spoken of Israel, of the dark times of the Third Crusade. He had told us why banking had been a step in the right direction; the bartering system had major setbacks of personal violence and gain.

I caught another few words, and frowned: _Son of None. Altaïr ibn La-Ahad._ Eagle.

I was Ezio Auditore de Firenze. Eagle.

A shiver went down my spine in a very inhuman way. My fingers shivered as they reached in to nearly the bottom of the trunk. With some cajoling, I managed to retract one document.

To my utmost surprise, a piece of paper was intelligible. It read:

_'I have been visited by a vision, those of which Al Mualim claimed to see the world. I do not know how to describe it. It has taken me hours of gazing toward the village to decide to put this onto paper. Will I be called mad for this? The vision was of a man in a room of metal. Desmond. I envisioned him reading my life, seeing my mistakes, of the times of my shame. He was part of me: I was his ancestor, yet I taught him. He was one of the Brotherhood in the dream. He learned to tell friend from foe through me. He learned of the Pieces of Eden, of leaping over the roofs of Jerusalem, of Malik's lost arm..._

_'Why do I write this? Why do I think of the face of Desmond, with my nose and my cheekbones? And why do I believe this? Why, when I am surrounded by my brothers, do I feel so alone?'_

I was silent. The dust motes in the air were lazy.

Then I swore violently. My fist pounded the floor with a crack. Everything in me snapped into place: my father's urging for Arabic and his legacy as an Assassin, the word '_Brotherhood_' written in the scrawl, my own name meaning 'Eagle'...

This was my lineage: my ancestor was an Assassin in 1188 in the Holy Lands of Jerusalem.

A vision.

I had wondered if I had seen the same, because last night, I had a dream of a man Desmond. He was living through me. The boy in the strange clothes had been seeing with my eyes as my father had been executed for being an Assassin. He had been with me when I took da Vinci's flying machine into the night. He had been killing countless politicians with me. And in the dream, I had known he was there.

Now, my ancestor spoke of this boy? Desmond?

It only took a moment to realize what I must do. My hands quaked. I smiled. My troubles, my restlessness was in my blood because I was a member of the Brotherhood. _Altaïr_ had known the same loneliness and hardships.

There was one more thing:

I needed paper and ink. I needed to add my thoughts to this box, and save it.

Hastily, my hand ripped open a new box searching for the materials; the simple board of the crate gave way in a crack. I tightened my jaw. The contents were lying on the floor, soft and delicate, pristine and clean.

Lace.

And I laughed.

_0_

_0_


End file.
